Disability income insurance replaces part of a paycheck when illness or injury makes it impossible to work, covering a risk that health insurance, which pays medical bills, and workers' compensation, which only covers job-related injuries, do not address on their own.

What Is Disability Income Insurance?

Disability income insurance pays benefits that replace part of the income an insured person loses when illness or injury prevents them from working.

Coverage can come through a group policy, such as an employer or association plan covering eligible members, or through an individual policy purchased directly by the covered person.

How Much of Your Income Does a Policy Typically Replace?

Benefits are not designed to replace all of a worker's pre-disability income, since full replacement would remove the financial incentive to return to work; a common approach pays a percentage of pre-disability wages, typically in the 50% to 75% range, sometimes reduced by other income such as Social Security or workers' compensation benefits received at the same time.

What Does "Own Occupation" Coverage Mean?

An own-occupation definition pays benefits when someone cannot perform the regular duties of their own line of work; short-term policies usually use this definition throughout, while long-term policies often use it only for the first year or two.

An any-occupation definition, which many long-term policies switch to after that initial period, pays benefits only if someone cannot perform the duties of any job they are qualified for by education, training, and experience, a tougher standard to meet.

How Long Is the Waiting Period, and How Long Do Benefits Last?

The waiting period is the stretch of time after a disability begins before benefits start, commonly ranging from a few days to a year or longer, with longer periods generally costing less.

Short-term policies typically pay benefits for six months to two years, while long-term policies may pay for five to ten years or continue to age 65 or for life.

Is Disability Income Insurance Taxable?

Whether a disability benefit is taxable generally comes down to who paid the premium: amounts received through an employer-paid plan are usually reported as income, while benefits from a policy whose premiums the recipient paid with their own after-tax dollars generally are not.

If both the employee and the employer paid part of the premium, only the portion of the benefit tied to the employer's share is reported as income.

How Can Social Security Disability Interact With a Private Policy?

Many individual and group policies reduce their own payout when a disabled person also receives Social Security disability benefits, through what is called a Social Security offset provision; a person covered by more than one policy can likewise see the combined total capped.

What Does Social Security Count as a Disability?

Social Security pays disability benefits only for a total disability expected to last at least 12 consecutive months or end in death; it does not pay for partial or short-term disability.

For 2026, earning more than $1,690 a month ($2,830 for someone who is blind) generally counts as substantial gainful activity, which can rule out a disability finding regardless of medical condition.

A worker generally needs 40 Social Security work credits, 20 of them earned in the 10 years before the disability began, with one credit earned for each $1,890 of covered earnings in 2026, up to four credits a year.

How Long Before Social Security Disability Benefits Begin?

Social Security disability benefits typically start after a five-month waiting period from the date the disability began, with the first payment due in the sixth full month; benefits can also reach back as far as 12 months before the application date if the disability existed that long.

What Other Features Show Up in a Disability Policy?

Riders available on some policies include a cost-of-living adjustment that raises the benefit over time, a future purchase option that lets coverage grow with earnings, a partial or residual disability benefit for someone who returns to work at reduced income, and a waiver of premium that keeps a policy in force without further payments once someone is disabled.

What Is the Social Security Trial Work Period?

Someone already receiving Social Security disability benefits can test their ability to work without immediately losing benefits through a trial work period: a month only counts against that period once earnings in it exceed a set threshold, and benefits continue until 9 such months, not necessarily consecutive, have occurred within a rolling 60-month window.

For 2026, a month counts toward the trial work period once earnings exceed $1,210.

What Exclusions Commonly Appear in a Disability Policy?

Most disability income policies exclude or limit claims tied to a pre-existing condition, generally meaning a health problem that was treated or showed symptoms before the policy's effective date, for a period set by that specific contract.

Other common exclusions include injuries connected to an act of war and self-inflicted injuries, and work-related injuries are often excluded as well, since a disability caused on the job is usually the province of workers' compensation instead.

How this fits together for someone at Kroger depends on Kroger's own short and long-term disability coverage, its active-employee health plan, and any company-paid life insurance, since those employer benefits fill in the specific numbers behind the general rules above.

Where Does Kroger's Own Disability and Life Insurance Coverage Fit In?

Kroger's own Health and Welfare Benefit Plan spells out the disability and life coverage sitting underneath the general rules described above. That plan lists both temporary disability and long-term disability among its covered welfare benefits for plan year 2024, when it reported 70,588 active participants at the start of the year, falling to 65,967 by year end with no explanation given in the filing itself. The same plan's welfare codes for that year also list life insurance and a separate death benefit apart from life insurance. Which of these benefits actually applies to your own role is worth confirming with Kroger's HR or benefits center.